Preparing for Advent
Advent is coming soon, and I wanted us to begin to wrestle with what are the connections between Advent and RO. Here are a list of some issues I identified in reading the lectionary passages and considering the season of Advent:
- The Second Coming of Christ
- Eschatology
- Incarnation
- Forgiveness
"How can you cope with the end of a world and the beginning of another one? How can you put an earthquake into a test-tube, or the sea into a bottle? How can you live with the terrifying thought that the hurricane has become human, that fire has become flesh, that life itself came to life and walked in our midst? Christianity either means that or it means nothing. It is either the most devastating disclosure of the deepest reality in the world, or it's a sham, a nonsense, a bit of deceitful play-acting. Most of us, unable to cope with saying either of those things, condemn ourselves to live in the shallow world in between. We may not be content there, but we don't know how to escape" (N.T. Wright, For All God's Worth: True Worship & the Calling of the Church, 1).
"Christmas is a beauty that is the beginning of terror: the Burning Babe, who has come to cast fire upon the earth. Before His presence, the idols fall and shatter... The Advent tension is a way of learning again that God is God: that between our deepest and holiest longing and the reality of God is a gap which only grace can cross: otherwise we are alone again, incommunicando, our signals and symbols bounced back to us off the glassy walls of the universe... Our hunger is met, we are talked and touched into new and everlasting life, our desire is answered- but only insofar as we have lived in an Advent of the religious imagination, struggling to let God be God, casting our idols of silver and gold to the moles and bats, 'for fear of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty,' longing simply for our God to show himself as God in the 'total and presuppositionless love of his incarnate speech to us" (Rowan Williams, A Ray of Darkness: Sermons and Reflections, 2-8).
posted by Scott | 11:02 PM
1 Comments:
Pope Benedict XVI has written some beautiful things about the theology of the incarnation and the cross in his Introduction to Christianity. This book is arguably his most important work. It was the product of many years of teaching.
Year after year during Advent, Fr. John Saward is someone I have found extremely helpful in my reading and contemplation. I highly recommend any and all of his works, but two works are specific to Advent.
Redeemer in the Womb: Jesus Living in Mary
Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery
For those that might not know, Fr. Saward is the translator of many of Balthasar's major works into English and is a former Anglican now Roman Catholic priest.
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